fugazi

Meanings

Adjective

• Fucked up; broken, damaged beyond repair.
• Fake.

Noun

• A person or thing that is fake; a fake, a fraud.

Origin

• Unknown; a number of possibilities have been suggested:
• A corruption of French fougasse; flame fougasses were used extensively in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
• An acronym of “fucked up, got ambushed, zipped in [a body bag]” (compare FUBAR), but this may be a backronym.
• Less plausibly, from English fugacious or cognates such as Italian fugace.
• Unknown; said to be of Mafia origin, from the Fugazy Continental limousine company in New York City which was owned by William “Bill” Fugazy, due to its cheesy “look like a rich guy” advertisements of the 1970s and 1980s, or its alleged poor business practices, possibly influenced by Italian fu cazzo. The word was popularized by the film Donnie Brasco (1997), based on the book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia (1987) by American former FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone (born 1939) who used the name “Donnie Brasco” as an undercover alias.